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Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Do You Lurk?

Sometimes I forget just how big the world is - the Internet has a way of distilling it, so to speak. For example, some of the bloggers I read on a daily basis are located all over the country and overseas. Yet with the click of a button, I can read their thoughts and ideas.

Blogging, MySpace, Facebook, and other social areas have further reduced the distance between us. In many ways, this is wonderful - people are connecting and sharing ideas like never before. Unfortunately, there is also a downside to this - it's a lot easier to insult someone, air your negative opinion, and generally be nasty to others when we're all sitting behind a computer instead of talking face to face.

When I look at my SiteMeter, I often marvel at how people got to my blog, at what search words they type in, what country they're from, etc. And it also brings up the question of lurking. I have many more visitors (as I'm sure most of us do) who don't comment than those who do. I'll admit, there are times when I'll visit a different blog and not leave a comment. And for me, it's because blogs are personal. I would rather visit a few times, get to know the person first, and then leave a comment rather than just comment and then forget to visit again.

(I just realized that if you look at the word "lurk" for a long time, it begins to look and sound really, really weird...or maybe I just haven't had enough caffeine yet)

With the impersonal nature of the Internet (to a certain extent) and the ease of being able to come out of de-lurk mode, why is it so hard for some of us to actually "de-lurk?"

Interested in your thoughts...(and yes, this is a call to come out of "lurk" mode!)

14 comments:

I do a lot of blog visiting. I try to leave a supportive comment, if I can. Sometimes, on Blogger, I can't, because it won't let me sign in; sometimes the blog just isn't my cup of tea, so I move on without aaying anything.

Of course, on some days, I simply have nothing to say, so I don't comment anyway . . .

I think a lot of people lurk for time issues. It's easy to zip in, read, zip out. But once you de-lurk, you're engaged. Engaging takes more time. Just a theory. And if I had more time I might even expound on it. ;)

I lurk on some blogs, and comment all the time on other blogs. Some of it depends on how much I enjoy the blog. Some of it depends on how much of a community the commenters have, if the blogger comes and posts in the comments and comments on comments. (man, did that make sense?? LOL).

Yeah - what Kelly said. Coming up with comments (appropriate ones) isn't always easy. And these days, even time to crawl the blogs is scarce! That's why I do like Facebook - I can post a status update and everyone sees it. Similarly, I can scan all the status updates for my friends on one page.

I tend to behave online as I do in real life. If there's a large group, I'm less involved. If it's one on one, and I like you, I'll pipe up. It's funny how people think being online gives them a different persona, but for me, it's all the same.

I tend to behave online as I do in real life. If there's a large group, I'm less involved. If it's one on one, and I like you, I'll pipe up. It's funny how people think being online gives them a different persona, but for me, it's all the same.

RT - I've felt the same way! Sometimes when there are a lot of comments, I feel like I'm intruding on the conversation - in other words, it's like walking up to a group of people that all know each other but don't know ME and suddenly contributing to the discussion.

Marty, I think I am more apt to participate on the Internet then in real life. I tend to be pretty shy in person - unless I am very comfortable with whoever I'm around. :-)

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